Monday, November 15, 2004

Here’s the deal, gentle reader. On one hand, you’ve got nostalgia, a warm, blurry sentiment that’s tough to satisfy regardless of how many photos or Classic Coke tins you possess. On the other hand, you’ve got those rare moments when you fill in the lines, connect all the dots, and realize that nostalgia isn’t nostalgia anymore. It’s nostalgia fulfilled. It’s everything you remember with a shiny new coat of paint and a change of tense–things and people that were, are.

That’s why this past weekend was so enjoyable. Cicero, Yellow Volvox, Ironman, and Nils made a grand return, if only for an evening. You may know these people, you might not, and we’ll get to why this applies to you in a moment. For now, let me just say that a great deal of pleasure came from realizing that although people were different–more learned, more married, more engaged–the talk was just as good, maybe even better. Same creamy filling, new coat of paint.

A large part of conversation, and this is what applies to you and me, inevitably involved storytelling. It occurred to me that the narrative tradition exists and will continue to exist for good reason. People love stories and will sit enraptured, hour after hour, to hear tales unfold. I bet you knew this all along, right? What does this mean for Secondhand Rants? We’ll see.